The encirclement by the right-wing Suna forces had been completely suppressed, leaving them pinned in desperate defense—even their stronghold teetered on collapse.
Meanwhile, the left-wing Suna ninja had finally breached the forest fire barrier.
Though the inferno still raged on either side, a cleared path now split the flames.
Clearly, the left-flank Suna troops had used a combined Fūton (Wind Release) to carve this opening.
Umino Yoru immediately mounted his giant white hawk, Shiro, and shot toward the gap. If they didn't plug it now, they'd be caught in a pincer attack.
From a distance, Uchiha Madara watched in disbelief.
"What is Umino Yoru doing? Instead of retreating before the Suna forces regroup, is he seriously trying to hold that gap alone*?"*
"The man's delusional," sneered Uchiha Yashiro beside him. "Does he think he's Hanzo of the Salamander, capable of fighting two hundred shinobi single-handedly?"
He begrudgingly acknowledged Yoru's tactical skill earlier—but when it came to raw power? Worthless. And now, even his judgment seemed questionable.
If those two hundred Suna ninja broke through and formed ranks, the Umino unit wouldn't escape in time.
By the time Yoru and Shiro reached the gap's airspace, the Suna vanguard had already poured into the corridor.
Timing it perfectly, Yoru unsealed a small scroll. A puff of smoke later, an oversized Fūma Shuriken—over two meters wide—materialized in his grip.
"Kree!"
Shiro screeched in protest as the added weight strained its wings. The hawk began losing altitude, dipping toward the ground.
At barely几十米 (a few dozen meters) above the enemy, Yoru hurled the colossal shuriken downward.
"Fūma Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!"
The weapon split mid-air into a dozen duplicates, each whirling in lethal arcs toward the Suna forces below. Their trajectories curved like stones skipping across water, slicing horizontally through the corridor at knee height.
The technique drained Yoru's chakra to near-zero. He swayed dangerously on Shiro's back, barely avoiding a fall, then shoved a handful of honeyed energy bars into his mouth.
Made from lizard-summon meat and royal jelly, these bars were pure fuel. Combined with his Gluttony Technique, his chakra replenished rapidly—full recovery in under ten minutes. At his current mental stamina, he could repeat this cycle dozens of times.
Meanwhile, Shiro—relieved of the shuriken's weight—soared back to safety.
"Combined Doton Defense!"
The Suna commander paled. He'd only seen shuriken of this scale once before—used by Sarutobi Hiruzen in the First War. That memory alone told him how deadly they were.
Though purely physical, these blades hit like an S-rank ninjutsu.
And for puppeteers? A hard counter.
Blocking kunai was trivial for puppets, but these monstrous shuriken? Impossible.
Still, non-elemental attacks had weaknesses. A combined earth wall could—
"Quake."
A hidden shadow clone struck first. Its subsonic pulse disrupted the Suna formation, aborting their defense mid-seal.
"Scatter!"
The commander's order came too late.
With flames on both sides and allies packed tight, the Suna ninja had nowhere to dodge. Some desperately raised puppets as shields—
—only for the shuriken to shear through them like paper.
The corridor became a slaughterhouse.
Limbs flew. Bodies split. Only the commander and a dozen others survived—some by leaping into the burning forest, trading burns for their lives.
Madara inhaled sharply.
Such devastation.
Had the entire left flank entered that corridor, this one strike would've crippled them.
"Elder Madara," Yashiro muttered, his Sharingan flaring, "that genjutsu again…"
Yet once more, his detection efforts found nothing.
"An elusive technique indeed," Madara mused, unsettled. A long-range disruption genjutsu even the Sharingan can't trace?
Above the battlefield, Yoru didn't press the attack. Instead, he hovered on Shiro, surveying the aftermath.
His unit had broken through the encirclement. The right-wing Suna forces were pinned under explosive kunai and sonic blasts, while the left-wing—those not butchered by the shuriken—hesitated, shaken to their core.
Then, whispers rose from the Suna ranks:
"The White Blood Demon…"
Their voices trembled. Their eyes locked onto Yoru with naked terror.
"White Blood Demon?" Yoru's brow furrowed.
The moniker sounded worse than "Konoha's Iron Wall." More like some underworld ghoul—a name befitting a monster.
But as his forces retreated, the Suna ninja kept their distance. None dared chase too closely beneath his shadow.
It seemed "The White Blood Demon" carried weight in Wind Country.